Not a Good Sign

When, in the course of the first ten pages of a novel, the characters mostly talk about visiting prostitutes… well, that doesn’t really bode well for the rest of the novel. But it’s one of the few fiction books I’ve run across that discusses Korea from a foreign point of view, and it’s even the first of a series.

Five points to anyone who’s read (and can name) what book I’m talking about.

Ten points to anyone who can tell me whether it’s actually worth slogging through, or whether all that blather about visiting prostitutes actually adds up to anything pointful later in the narrative… because I gotta confess, I have my doubts.

Funnily enough, it fits with something else I just read today, but I’ll save that for a post.

You will all the promised points, surprisesaplenty.

I hasted to add, I don’t think it’s really priggishness on my part. I don’t mind them making a few references to this kind of thing, as it seems to be at least somewhat part of the lifestyle for a proportion of the young men with the USFK stuck in South Korea in those days. (And I’ve seen similar mentalities among newly-arrived foreign teachers in Korea.) But it’s as if talking about “business girls” and what one does with them stands in for characterization… I’m at about page 40 now and it’s still like that. Shrug.